May 1, 1988-San Antonio Express-News

Metiche has more to say

Standing up to leave the cafe, I almost stumbled as Metiche grabbed my arm.

"Don't you dare go now," he told me. "Don't act-like all those important directors too busy to listen to a nobody from the barrio."

Metiche's clean but shabby clothes bespoke the mind of the barrio. Poverty mixed with pride made rivulets on his face. I sat down again and motioned the waitress over for a coffee refill.

"Continue with your story, Metiche," I said. Lord knows but there is always time to listen, even if one can't agree."

"Agree?" Metiche remonstrated, "I don't want your agreement. No! I want your attention, just as I want the city to also pay attention to how my tax dollars are spent.

"I may not pay much in taxes, but every cent hurts, and I hate it when there is no way to get funders to listen.

"Like all sensible people, I want to see great art created, and it would be wonderful if the barrio could actually participate in events that really say something positive about culture."

No room for fairness

"There is no room for fairness in the arts," Metiche stressed.

Exasperated, I stammered out, "Metiche, you have it all wrong. The city funds only those programs with a track record. If you don't believe me, ask the Arts and Culture Committee, and they will inform you about guidelines. It's all there."

"Look, poet," Metiche said, gesticulating, sometimes there is no difference between who plays who in what role, but you writers are too lost in your ivory towers to know much about the movidamientos of arts funding."

"You mean movimientos, Metiche."

"No, guey, José," Metiche laughed. "I mean movidas and not process. Why, it's crazy to name people to boards and committees that determine funding patterns when those same persons also happen to direct the centers that will benefit from public funding."

"Just what do you mean, Metiche?" I asked, somewhat piqued.

"It's 'gato por liebre,' carnal," Metiche guffawed: "Like getting skinned cat instead of rabbit at the market, and like hiring the fox to guard the henhouse.

"As for those New Mexico poets you mentioned before, well they belong to the Rio Grande Institute in New Mexico, and that organization is a sister program of our own Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center.

On board of institute

"It's said that Guadalupe staff people and board members also serve on the board of the Rio Grande Institute, and thus they exchange their stable of artists and poets with one another - and with good pay and excellent accomodations," Metiche said.

"That shows that both programs want to share with one another, doesn't it?" I asked.

"But what of all the other excluded artists in the community?" Metiche spat out. "The Guadalupe Theater was created to serve all of our community, and not just their friends."

"That's not fair, Metiche," I said. "The center even had a fund-raiser for someone in the barrio whose house burned down, and I consider that doing real community work."

Metiche looked at me quizzically, making me feel that I had lost all touch with reality, and then he shook his head.

"I will give you one last chance to understand, poet," he began testily. "There was a fund-raiser, but it was for one of their project directors, and not for a 'community' person who is unemployed, underemployed and unable to fend for himself.

"A project director, mind you, who can easily tap into a vast world of musicians who hungrily need to respond to the power structure if they are to ever get any work," Metiche shouted angrily.

"There's more to it, Metiche, and the program does do some good, doesn't it?" I asked.

Most is public money

"Poet, that program, like all the others, gets funding from many sectors, and most is public money. We pay their salaries, and we pay for the rent and upkeep of that theater so that it can serve the community.

"Not only do we pay through our taxes, but every event at that center is anything but free, so we wind up paying two or three times for something that is usually not relevant to the barrio," Metiche said.

I had started to think ahead, when he grabbed my arm for emphasis.

"Listen, bard," Metiche said, "it is just the same old story of the pueblo being left out, and this time by those who resemble the pueblo.

"It's a closed shop; that's the gist of arts centers. Sometimes job openings are not advertised where the barrio can see them, and then the media announce that so and so was appointed to a literature directorship. I thought non-profit organizations that are publicly funded had to open all jobs to the public.

"I was naive to expect that these centers really wanted to create art in a community setting, but all I see are events that sometimes charge so much that no one in the barrio can afford to even dream of going there."

"You're just cynical, Metiche," I laughed.

Golden beans

Cínico? Yo?" Metiche shouted, his eyes blazing. "You call $25 a ticket affordable just to see 'Milagro'? Those must be golden beans, poeta! Or even the fund-raiser for $100 a plate hosted there, is that cynicism? Just because you see Mercedes Benzes and Caddies parked at Guadalupe and Brazos does not mean we can afford 'asociégate cultural' poet.

"Those are the cars of the ones who can afford forays into refried cultura schemes when nothing else is happening," Metiche said sadly as he stood up to leave. "I was really hoping to find a James Escalante in the arts, someone willing to work hard at creating change."

He left me alone and lost in thoughts about the moral, social and professional responsibilities we have. Maybe, just maybe, Metiche is correct in his allegations; maybe there are some real conflicts in how people do their jobs in government-funded programs.

If Metiche felt it, and if the barrio wonders, well, then, even a poet-columnist should.